Not long ago, I felt fed up with competition. I thought it would be nice if everyone tried to see the good in themselves and others. We could all appreciate each other's motives, hopes, disappointments. What do we need competition for, anyway?
Then, I read Eagleman's "Incognito" about the large part of my brain that is incognito, unconscious, inaccessible to my conscious mind. One part emphasizes the idea that I can have contradictory desires and drives: eat a chocolate but refrain from added sugar. So, the author's image is that of contradictions being kicked upstairs to the executive office of the conscious mind for resolution.
I realize that if I want the job and you want the job, we are going to be competing. I see that I benefit from having several companies design and sell computers so I have a choice and they don't have sole control of the market. But I didn't realize that I can find competition right inside my own mind. So, it is not just all those knights vying for her hand and it is not just all those Cinderellas competing for the glass slipper. Struggle and opposition is even inside me.
I should have seen it coming. A long time ago, I wrote my dissertation on decision-making. Even Ben Franklin had to make a list of reasons for and against something when he had a tough, tricky, almost balanced choice. When two or more cities want a new Amazon plant in their area, there is going to be competition. Each meal is a competition between foods. Each book or movie is a choice from a set of possibilities.
I have trained myself to have a red light go on when I hear about "the best". It doesn't much matter whether it is the best warrior, the best poet or the cutest baby. Getting the best just about requires some arbitrary and debatable decisions about the criteria for superiority. I am quite aware that changes in the criteria bring different "best" whatevers. Best baseball batter? What bats? What stadiums? What hours of the day or night?
But I do see that there is only one now. Just now, I can only choose this or that. There is one me only and I can't go in two directions. It is not just arbitrary choices. There are fundamental choices and in many of them, only one of us will win.
